first-round draft pick

When Harvard-Westlake grads Max Fried of the New York Yankees and Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs are introduced on July 15 at the MLB All-Star Game in Atlanta, their former high school coaches, Matt LaCour and Jared Halpert, will be in the stands celebrating the historic moment.

“We’re all proud on campus,” said LaCour, now the school’s athletic director and former coach of Fried.

“It’s kind of everyone wins if Max faces Pete,” Halpert said.

Harvard-Westlake has received attention for its success sending pitchers to the majors with Fried, Lucas Giolito and Jack Flaherty, all of whom were members of the 2012 team and first-round draft picks.

Chicago Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong.

(Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)

Crow-Armstrong, a first-round draft pick in 2020 who was selected by the fans to start in center field, is a breakthrough hitter for the Cubs.

“We’ve got a couple hitters coming through, so maybe we’ll change the pitching narrative,” LaCour said.

But who will the coaches root for if Fried is on the mound and Crow-Armstrong is at the plate?

“That definitely would be cool,” LaCour said. “I’ll root for Max and Jared will root for Pete.”

LaCour is in Atlanta this week coaching a youth team and will stay an extra two days to watch the All-Star Game. Halpert is flying out next Tuesday morning, then taking a rideshare to the ballpark.

They shouldn’t have any trouble getting tickets because they know an all-star.

The winter wails of “Are the Dodgers ruining baseball?” pretty much established the Dodgers as the team other major league owners love to hate. If there is one thing most owners love more than winning, it is cost control. That is why they covet a salary cap.

The team other owners love? It might just be the Angels.

For owners, costs go beyond the salaries of major league players. In 2021, Major League Baseball eliminated 43 minor league teams affiliated with MLB organizations. Why, owners wondered, should we continue to pay two dozen entry-level players to fill out a roster when only two of them might be legitimate prospects?

And what could be more efficient than turning over player development to colleges? The NFL has no minor league. The NBA has one. Even after those 2021 cuts, MLB teams remain affiliated with 14 minor leagues.

That brings us to the Angels. In football and basketball, a first-round draft pick almost always goes from college one year to the NFL and the NBA the next. In baseball, even a first-round draft pick can spend several years in the minor leagues.

The Angels just called up second baseman Christian Moore, who could make his major league debut Friday in Baltimore, and pitcher Sam Bachman. That means the Angels’ roster now includes eight of their first-round picks — including each of their past five, all 25 or younger.

None of them spent even 100 games in the minor leagues, and almost all of that limited time was spent at the highest levels of the minors. This time last year, Moore was preparing for the College World Series with eventual national champion Tennessee. The Angels gave him 20 games at triple-A Salt Lake, in which he hit .350 with a .999 OPS, and summoned him to the majors.

Of the nine players likely to take the field for the Angels on Friday, the team drafted six in the first round: Moore (2024), first baseman Nolan Schanuel (2023), shortstop Zach Neto (2022), and outfielders Jo Adell (2017), Taylor Ward (2015) and Mike Trout (2009). The bullpen would include Bachman (2021) and Reid Detmers (2020).

Angels shortstop Zach Neto walks through the dugout during a game against the Miami Marlins on May 24.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

This is not the only way to win. None of the Dodgers’ past five top draft picks are even in the major leagues, and the team’s current roster includes only two Dodgers’ first-round draft picks: catcher Will Smith (2016) and pitcher Clayton Kershaw (2006).

No matter, of course, because the team’s current roster also includes Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Total cost for that quartet: $1.6 billion. Total signing bonuses for the eight Angels first-round picks: $30 million.

And there is no evidence to show what we might call the Angels Way — drafting polished college stars capable of getting to the majors in a hurry — is a way to win. The Angels are trying to rebuild without investing heavily in scouting and player development. They have not posted a winning season in 10 years.

As the Angels open play Friday, they are one game under .500. They played .360 ball in April and .500 ball in May, and they have played .700 ball so far in June. They are 4 ½ games out of first place in what appears to be baseball’s weakest division, the American League West.

What the Angels are trying means you absolutely cannot miss on your top draft picks. Although each of their first-rounders this decade now has made the majors, to this point only Neto has displayed star potential. It’s still early, of course, and a team that learned that Ohtani and Trout alone cannot deliver October is hoping to develop a broader base of talent.

The Angels will try again in a few weeks. They have the second overall pick in the July draft. They could aim to fill their Anthony Rendon-sized third-base hole with Oregon State’s Aiva Arquette. On Thursday, prospect analyst Keith Law of The Athletic projected the Angels would take Tennessee left-hander Liam Doyle.

“Everyone expects the Angels to take Doyle or (LSU left-hander) Kade Anderson,” Law wrote, “and then put whoever they select in the majors before the ink is dry on the contract.”

That would make nine first-rounders on the major league roster. That, certainly, would be efficient. Negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement start next year, and the Angels Way could embolden owners to eliminate even more minor league teams.

The fans might be rooting for the star-studded Dodgers. The cost-conscious owners are rooting for the Angels.

It screamed watershed moment, the forever luckless Clippers outfoxing the eternally exalted Lakers for the services of not one, but two superstars.

The news stunned the NBA: In a matter of hours, the Clippers had traded for Paul George and signed Kawhi Leonard.

Six years later, the deal for George is considered tragically lopsided, the Clippers fleeced and forced to watch assets they surrendered lift the Oklahoma City Thunder to within three wins of an NBA championship.

The trade wouldn’t be looked upon harshly had the Clippers won a championship in the five seasons that George and Leonard played together. But the deepest the team advanced was the Western Conference finals in 2021.

George left as a free agent last offseason, signing with the Philadelphia 76ers. Leonard has played in only 266 of 472 games with the Clippers because of injuries. The Clippers paid George $195.9 million and have paid Leonard $194.6 million — with Leonard under contract for another two years and $100.3 million.

Meanwhile, one of the two players shipped to the Thunder along with five first-round draft picks, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, has blossomed into the NBA‘s most valuable player. And the 2022 draft pick acquired from the Clippers was used to select Jalen Williams, a rising star who averaged 21.6 points a game this season.

Both are bargains. Gilgeous-Alexander — known as SGA — was paid just $13.5 million his first three seasons with the Thunder before signing a five-year, $173-million contract that will take him through the 2026-27 season. Williams has made $13.7 million in three seasons and will be paid $6.6 million next season, the last of his rookie contract.

And it’s a deal that just keeps giving — to the Thunder, who as a result of the trade get the Nos. 15 and 24 picks in this year’s draft and the Clippers’ first-round pick in 2026.

Asked to evaluate the deal moments after the Clippers defeated the Thunder in January 2024, George grudgingly acknowledged that the pendulum had swung toward Oklahoma City.

“I just think both sides won,” he said. “I did think it was quite a lot that the Clippers were willing to give up. … When that trade first happened, we knew Shai was going to be really, really good, but he’s special.”

George sighed and continued: “I guess in a way, Oklahoma won that trade with the picks and future MVP, but both sides won.”

The fact is, the Clippers couldn’t say no to the deal. Why? Because Leonard was a free agent coming off an NBA title with Toronto in which he was Finals MVP, and he was weighing offers from the Lakers and Raptors as well as the Clippers.

Signing Leonard was paramount, and he had given the Clippers something of an ultimatum: Trade for a star and I’m yours. Otherwise, it’s hello Lakers.

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer needed to be convinced that giving up the slew of draft picks was a smart move. Leonard signing with the Lakers was an unthinkable outcome to Clippers coach Doc Rivers, and he jokingly told Ballmer the Clippers would need to relocate to Seattle if that happened.

“Steve Ballmer was nervous about the picks,” Rivers told The Times in 2019. “I said, ‘Steve, you keep saying six picks for Paul George is insane, but you’re saying it wrong. It’s not six for Paul; it’s six for Paul and Kawhi. So three for each. I would do that.’ You have to look at it in those terms.”

Knowing the Clippers desperately needed to consummate the deal, Thunder general manager Sam Presti demanded SGA — who was coming off an impressive rookie campaign — respected forward Danilo Gallinari and the draft picks.

Unforeseen was that SGA would rapidly rise from promising youngster to foundational piece to perhaps the best player in the NBA. He led the league in scoring this season with 32.7 points a game. He put up 34 points, eight assists and five rebounds in the Thunder’s win over the Indiana Pacers in Game 2 of the Finals on Sunday.

In Game 1, a stunning Pacers comeback was helped by two late missed shots by SGA. Still, he scored 38 points, and his 72 in his first two NBA Finals games is a league record.

“I’m being myself,” Gilgeous-Alexander told reporters. “I don’t think I tried to reinvent the wheel or step up to the plate with a different mindset. Just try to attack the game the right way. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of that so far.”

Through 18 playoff games, SGA is averaging 30.4 points, 6.8 assists, 5.6 rebounds and 1.8 steals. Only Michael Jordan and LeBron James have recorded those numbers during a playoff run of 16 or more games.

None of this is a complete surprise. SGA provided the Clippers with opportunities to feel seller’s remorse soon after the trade. On Dec. 22, 2019, he scored 32 points with five assists and two steals in a 118–112 Thunder victory. Two years later almost to the day, he made a three-pointer at the buzzer to give the Thunder a 104–103 win.

Next is closing out the Finals and delivering a title to Oklahoma City — something that has proven elusive for the Clippers, the oldest franchise in North American professional sports to have never played in a championship game.

“This is where we are, you can’t go back in the past,” SGA said. “You can only make the future better. That’s what I’m focused on.”

The Clippers can only do the same.